


wàn niàn jù huī [ten thousand thoughts in ashes]

by Leyenn



Category: Babylon 5, Firefly
Genre: Dark, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When River was seventeen, she had her first nightmare about shadows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wàn niàn jù huī [ten thousand thoughts in ashes]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Netgirl_y2k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/gifts).



_Pretty, pretty, pretty,_ comes the silent song into her mind, and she closes her eyes to shut herself away.

_Quiet, quiet,_ she whispers, and the song dims.

_Quiet, pretty._

_Quiet, yes._ She has long since abandoned thinking of herself as pretty, despite the endless song from beyond this wall. _Quiet. Sleep. Sleep now._

_Pretty when you sleep,_ River sings, melodic and sad. _Pretty thoughts singing. Words, all those happy words._

She squeezes her eyes tightly to stop the tears. _Yes._

  


*

  


When River was three and three-quarters, a man in a black suit came to the house and spoke to her daddy and her mommy, and the man in the black suit made her mommy cry horrible tears, and River hated him. Sometimes she dreams about him, good dreams, all ashes and blood. Then she wakes up screaming.

She remembers things on the better days, like what it was like to have a brother, and how to look pretty, make daddy pick her up in his huge arms and spin her around, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, not looking down, not looking, not looking, not looking at Simon's grave.

She hates the war that took him away, and she hates the dark men, but most of all she hates how much of everything she remembers. Even what isn't hers.

  


*

  


_Dead men live in the ground,_ River tells her solemnly, _but some dead men live next door, too._

She is too tired to disagree. Who knows, perhaps it's true. She thinks back, remembering. There was a dead man on the station, once, she remembers that. His cold dead eyes and cold dead hands on her, his cold dead mutilated mind.

_Yes,_ she admits. _Yes, they do._

_Simon's dead._ Simon is dead, and River is crying.

_Yes, sweetheart._ Sometimes she does wish she had strength left for lies. _He's been dead a long time._

_Boneheads._ It sounds like cursing.

_Minbari._ She remembers Minbari, and that she liked some Minbari, and she makes herself correct it every time, though River still cries and curses, and it does no good. _It was a mistake, remember? It was all a horrible mistake, and they're very sorry now._

_Make them sorry,_ River says, and she's never sure if it's a plea or a promise. Whatever, the thought makes her shudder.

  


*

  


When River was four, the dark men came in the bright sunshine, and sat and drank tea while her mommy put clothes in a bag and cried.

  


*

  


_Simon?_

_Simon?_

_Simon?!_

_Simon...?_

She sighs. _Simon's not here, sweetheart. Back to sleep. Go back to sleep._

_I want Simon._ Little-girl wistfulness bound up in thundering pain; it makes her fingernails bite into her palm, ragged edges drawing blood that will never be cleaned away.

_I know._

_Don't want to be alone, pretty. Dark and all alone._

She presses her face into the threadbare pillow and cries.

  


*

  


When River was fifteen, the dark men came to see her at the Home, just like she'd known they would, and they talked to Abby for a long time. They thought she wasn't listening, but she was, and she knew it all, pulled it all out of their heads like candy string. Everything.

They made it dark in her head when they found out, and she cried for Abby, but she remembers now, how Abby stood and watched them with their needles and their tests and didn't say a word, only a single thought.

_The Corps is mother, the Corps is father._

She remembers that Abby held her and loved her, but then she remembers that, and she can't make the pieces fit any more.

  


*

  


_Don't want to go! Don't! Let go!_

Her hands press against the wall, slick cold Martian stone through thick soundproof glass, too smooth for purchase. She leans against it, shaking.

_Let her go!_ she wants to shout, to scream, and bites her tongue on the thought. It does no good, only makes her wish for that last spark of love inside her to die and save them both the pain.

Blood trickles between her lips. The wailing drowns in horrible, familiar darkness: she stays silent until there's no one there, on the other side of the wall.

Then she opens her throat and screams.

  


*

  


When River was seventeen, she had her first nightmare about shadows.

She was somewhere else, all red and cold, and they were coming to eat her.

  


*

  


_Very pretty,_ River whispers to her.

_Yes, she was._

_Is. Is pretty, pretty._

_Is._ Nothing is, beyond the walls and the touch of River's voice, and she begins to let herself think that nothing ever will be again. It's been so long in the darkness now that she doesn't remember the light. _Yes, she is,_ she thinks, but it's a lie. Those days are only a dream now, a torment, a madness.

One day she will wake up as broken as River, she thinks, and some part of her is starting to think that will be a kindness when it finally arrives.

  


*

  


When River was nineteen, the dark men took her to Mars.

She remembers what it was like, bouncing over cold red dust in silence, her head all light and spinning, spinning, spinning. It was fun. She wanted to go again, so the dark men said yes, she could, and took her Out There.

Out There is where she remembers being something else, just for an instant of forever - something big and dark and slick and old. They still take her out there sometimes but it's gone now, gone away, and part of her with it.

_Flying._

She laughs, when all she wants inside is to scream.

  


*

  


_The dark men are coming._

_The dark men are always coming._ She's tired, so tired, weary and sick. She still hopes that one day, the tests will stop, but she knows they never will.

_The dark men are coming, but the shadow man doesn't like them. They'll all burn, burn, flames and ashes,_ and River's thought lifts into song again. _The shadows don't like the dark men because they hurt them._

She shudders at River's joy, and some part of her soul prays for the shadows to come, even though she knows what it means.

She wonders which she'll choose, death or damnation, when it comes to the end. Her horror is that one feels much the same as the other.

_Reflection, surprise, terror._

Talia listens to the memories, and thinks of what used to be, and prays.

  


*

  


One night when River was twenty-three, the silence stopped, and the song started.

She doesn't tell the pretty one about it, even though it wouldn't be there without her. The pretty one woke it up, but it won't speak to her, because she's Theirs and it's not allowed, so River speaks to it for her. She sings along to it as best she can, which is sometimes good, especially when she thinks of the old things, the flying things, the wondrous things she's been. The things she's promised she'll be, soon. Soon.

The song sings itself to her, and she listens to all the notes rising into place.

_Soon, pretty one, soon, soon. Make them all sorry._

River is twenty-four tomorrow, and there are still shadows to be found, and her song is almost finished.

  


*

  



End file.
